Elliot Coleman: of course organic farming can feed the world

Even the lowely Vatican comes out against GMOs.
http://beta.ca.news.yahoo.com/vatican-official-backs-off-perceived-approval-gene...

Obviously we will need a combination of actions to feed the population and keep food safe. Keeping population at a smaller lever, reducing urban sprawl, keeping soil, air and water free of pollutants, raising crops in a more local way, reduction of business influences, legislation making it easy to sell food are all important to supplying, quality food continuously to our bloated populations.

Raising your own food supply can create expense and a lot of labor. Raising a portion of your own food is more realistic for most people. The Great Depression had a lot of folks raising rabbits, pigeons and chickens as well as a few vegetables to get by. Rabbits and pigeons are really productive. Chickens give eggs as well as meat but need more space and odor can be a problem. In my area, oranges,mango and grapefruit almost grow themselves without much help at all. But those crops don't feel like food to a lot of people. An orange just isn't a T bone steak.

in the mid '70s i worked on a commune that had an organic farm. 2+ acres fed 200 people using the "french intensive system" and companion planting, albeit we had limitless fertallizer with our 300 head dairy. it is amazing, how much can grow in a small space if you understand what plants like. i should mention that the garden didn't include grains, potatoes or melons, those guys take a lot of space. one watermellon plant can take over 10x10 feet.

I don't think our planet was created to change it's harmony, But we have done a great job in doing so......genetically modified seeds, cross breeding plants......I think I would rather pay money for expensive Healthy foods then pay a profit driven health insurance premium!!!

I think Elliot needs to spread his work around the US. the day i own my first house I will be raising my own food!

It all depends upon what you grow. A fairly small, dark building could raise mushrooms non stop. And mushrooms are expensive. I know that some mushrooms are very fast growing. With a fairly small space you might have a harvest every day.

I suspect that very high yields involve indoor or greenhouse farming, perhaps vertical farming and maybe even crops such as mushrooms that can grow in a cave. But intensive agriculture can yield quite a lot of produce. I'm in Florida with outdoor tomato plants growing and producing right now.

I make 5 million a year off one tomato plant. Jan you still dreamin?

Kinda hard to beleive that 120,000 $ of food per year can be grown on 1.5 acres. I've lived on 1.5 acres, and it really isn't that much area. I wonder what his prices are like for say a pound of tomatoes? Do people pay more for his vegetables because his farm is famous?

Everything that you eat has been genetically altered both now and in centuries long past. That is what farmers have always done. Cross breeding of variants in order to produce better stock and plants has been going on for thousands of years. There is nothing frightening about it at all. By the way, if you eat some organic, naturally raised chicken or beef you'll probably hate it. Grass fed beef is one great example. Without a high calorie diet the meat is just nasty. It is the fat and the grains that give beef flavor. Organic chickens tend to have huge bones and a lot less meat and lack flavor as well. I do agree that indoor farming is the wave of the future but it should not be modeled after the organic folks beliefs. Even the term organic has no meaning other than in chemistry where it simply means containing carbon.

organics the way to go, we've already put at least some genetically manufactured food in our mouths without knowing the truth, those days need to be long gone.

The food supply and population are locked together. By implementation of strict control of reproduction we can lower the cost of food by lowering the demand. With less demand the quality of food must increase for the growers to compete for the limited money available. Most problems are rooted in over population and no politician wants to touch mandatory birth control. This may be the fatal flaw in the concept of electing officials as opposed to a dictatorship where rules can be applied without concern for agreement by the masses.

Yeah and we could probably also stop underage pregnancies if we could just find a way to get all kids to practice abstinence.

We have structural issues that prohibit progress. For example people in condominiums can not usually garden. Florida has 1200 golf courses yet does not feed the poor adequately. How is it that we allow condos to prohibit gardening or allow golf courses to exist while people suffer from malnutrition? And would it not be easier for people to catch fish if we ended commercial fishing. That way the individual willing to take the time to catch a fish prospers instead of a grocery store.
Just as technology has the goal of elimination of human labor we now need a goal of keeping business out of areas of our lives. Things like energy and food production, even in cities, needs to shift away from business and more to the individual. Zoning regulations and neighborhood associations inhibit progress and need to have powers stripped away from them. Regulations that stop making a fish pond, a windmill, or a home made from waste materials at hand need to vanish.

i will do my part even if I can only grow a little I will grow what i can. I ask that you all do the same. I'm tired of the Goverment and large corporations. telling me what I can do and what i can't do. I can grow food I can do my part to save the planet from the greedy bastards that want to control what we eat and what we say what we see and what we hear. i know i don't make much sense to most of you folks but I know whats right and whats wrong. The we are being treated by our goverment is wrong. What ever happen to the small family farm or the backyard garden. that was the kids job to weed after school it taught us what it was like to work. I'm sure that most here grew up eating what was grown in the garden well ok those of us over thirty.

It's Sully!!!!!

As it always has since well before the 20th century when petrochemical
fertilizers & Corporate factory farming attempted to replace the ratio
of 10 organic farmers to feed 100 people to 1 farmer with machines
to feed 1000 people. Since then the few people at the top of the food
chain have been manipulating everyone so they could make obscene
profits doing nothing, while impoverishing the farmers doing everything.
The quality of the food has been diminished proportunately to the vast
quality being produced. Meanwhile we've been lulled into cheaper food
at the expense of the public health. Organic food=the most healthful food
per acre. Corporate food=the most dollars per acre. But you can't eat
money. And all that is changing radicaly and rapidly. For several years
now during the Recession, food retailers have diminished portions
canned and bottled for years now to avoid raising prices. But in 2011,
prices of food commodities are expected to change. So buy localy
from your community farmers market, and grow your own food where
ever you can. Each dollar you spend supporting local organic farmers
doubles the value of that dollar to $2 in community commonwealth. Imho,
except for the proliferation of cheap electric cars, and green jobs, I can't
think of a more immediate economic stimulus benefiting everyone
deserving it than that. Concentrating on the waealth of local communities
is what built up the USA. Exporting the commonwealth to support the
globalist greedos has only impoverished Americans by exporting jobs abroad.